Yes. That’s exactly why it’s always pissed me off when women I’ve worked with have had a kid one day and immediately returned to work the next. I expect all women who have the option of taking maternity leave to use it, and I find that expectation perfectly reasonable. “Society” agrees with me about that, at least to a certain extent, clearly; were that not the case, no such thing as maternity leave would even exist.
I guess a counter to your example would be that paternity leave should be just as available and expected as maternity leave should be, so ideally it wouldn’t even be something specific to one sex. (Of course moms do have the painful and difficult part, but it’s also about getting the kid a good start and full attention at first)
As a man who agrees that dads should be allowed, supported and encouraged to take a long paternity leave, I must say that the idea of a woman working the day after giving birth is much more horrifying than the man working the day after his wife gave birth.
Yeah partners of whatever sex should get paid parental leave, I think the problem here was that it got structured as medical leave, short term disability. Not “we just had a baby and that is taking every minute of our day, and it’s important to society to give families a good start.” It is getting better just started at below zero, less than the absolute minimum a society ought do if there was some pressing reason they needed everyone working as much as possible.
Well, it didn’t, in the US, when I was having kids. Society did not agree, it had to be fought for by moms. I did get the FMLA unpaid leave with my second set and could use accrued PTO, with the first two it was work or starve.
are there any expectations based on sex, opposite or otherwise, that aren’t unreasonable?
Yes. That’s exactly why it’s always pissed me off when women I’ve worked with have had a kid one day and immediately returned to work the next. I expect all women who have the option of taking maternity leave to use it, and I find that expectation perfectly reasonable. “Society” agrees with me about that, at least to a certain extent, clearly; were that not the case, no such thing as maternity leave would even exist.
I guess a counter to your example would be that paternity leave should be just as available and expected as maternity leave should be, so ideally it wouldn’t even be something specific to one sex. (Of course moms do have the painful and difficult part, but it’s also about getting the kid a good start and full attention at first)
I mean, yeah. Ideally, it should just be that and not what I said, which I also find sad.
As a man who agrees that dads should be allowed, supported and encouraged to take a long paternity leave, I must say that the idea of a woman working the day after giving birth is much more horrifying than the man working the day after his wife gave birth.
Definitely true.
Yeah partners of whatever sex should get paid parental leave, I think the problem here was that it got structured as medical leave, short term disability. Not “we just had a baby and that is taking every minute of our day, and it’s important to society to give families a good start.” It is getting better just started at below zero, less than the absolute minimum a society ought do if there was some pressing reason they needed everyone working as much as possible.
Well, it didn’t, in the US, when I was having kids. Society did not agree, it had to be fought for by moms. I did get the FMLA unpaid leave with my second set and could use accrued PTO, with the first two it was work or starve.
Sorry. It’s embarrassing that it was ever that way, in the U.S. or anywhere, I think.
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